CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 3 - Threat Discussion

Moderator

The burning passion of Fire / Poison has overwhelmed the power of 64 Icy Rocks, and thus it is now the typing of CAP 3. Now we discuss the immediate consequences of this typing with regard to tactics and Pokémon that can threaten CAP 3 based on its typing. More specifically, we aim to answer the following:

Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?

What Pokemon will be major threats to this project right off the bat?

What Pokemon have the potential to become counters?

What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept?

Will the concept succeed with these set list of threats?

Is this list of threats acceptable for the project?

What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?

Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?

Will these targets be "unavoidable" to threaten based solely on the typing?

What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified?

What must be done in order to make these threats "wanted counters" or these threats be eliminated from counter discussion?

What Pokemon do we want this project to counter entirely?

Obviously, no individual post has to answer every question. Please keep the assumptions minimal (e.g. "CAP 3 will have at least one STAB") to avoid poll-jumping.

General Description: The idea here is to create a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool.

Justification: There are a lot of typings we scoff at on a daily basis because of their serious flaws, often forgetting about their strong points. For example, Poison is a really terrible offensive typing, but a decent defensive typing, while the Ice typing is good offensively, but awful defensively. Instead of just accepting that some typings will just ruin a Pokemon, this CAP concept aims to take that "terrible typing", and find ways to fix it (usually via ability, movepool, or stats) to the point where the formerly terrible typing becomes the CAP's strong point! The reason this CAP could benefit OU is because a Pokemon who makes a "bad typing" into a great one could find many unique offensive and/or defensive niches that aren't currently found!

Questions To Be Answered

-What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?

-How does the typing makeover effect the Pokemon's playstyle? Does the Pokemon become a unique wall that uses its makeover to overcome its typing's normally fatal flaws, does the make over make a terrible offensive typing into a fearsome sweeper, does the makeover make it into a formidible combination of deffense and offense to a typing that brings it neither, or does the makeover bring forth something none of us see coming from the typing?

-Which resistances and immunities are the most relevant to the metagame? Sure, this concept is aiming to have a "bad typing" become good, but part of that will require the bad typing to have some key resistances and/or immunties to certain typings to defend against or set up on, while still having a very unorthodox competitive typing. This works the other way around too, what are the typings most relevant to hit super effectively or at least neutral?

-How will the rest of the OU metagame react to this extreme type makeover? Will Pokemon start carrying moves they normally wouldn't carry to break through a new defensive threat, will some Pokemon take on new defensive roles due to resisting the unorthodox STABs CAP 3 may carry? Or will This Pokemon, despite being a very real threat, not have many "custom made sets" to beat it, being more of a Pokemon that is a reaction to the metagame than causing a metagame reaction?

-Finally, how will this effect the teams CAP3 is on? Will this be the kind of Pokemon who needs a lot of support to become a threat, will this Pokemon be more of key team member to execute another strategy, or will this be the kind of Pokemon that's part of the glue that holds the team together?

If you look at its "best" counters, they're all kinda slow. If we were to taken advantage of that and give it leech seed or poison heal in conjunction with substitute, it would be able to work around these counters.

Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?

What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?

Will these targets be "unavoidable" to threaten based solely on the typing?

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These questions at the very least are very problematic for this CAP, because its ability is going to play so deeply into how its typing works. The three major suggestions that I've been hearing for this Pokemon are Dry Skin, Drought, and Levitate, and all (and more!) have serious consequences in how they alter type effectiveness. We simply cannot have this conversation without poll jumping because assuming that the CAP won't have these things is just as much poll jumping as assuming that it will.

It is for that reason that I highly recommend that we not get too comfortable with anything discussed in this thread, because "settling" on any threats beforehand is only going to limit what we can do with abilities later on. I don't want to see anybody in the ability discussion say anything like, "We can't give it ability X, because then Y Pokemon won't be able to threaten it anymore like we decided before." Even if that's not the purpose of this discussion, it can easily be misconstrued that way, and there is no doubt in my mind that some people will misconstrue it that way.

If I had my way, we'd wait until we've decided on the ability before having this discussion. Otherwise, this discussion could easily end up not just an unproductive waste of time but possibly even counterproductive because of the ways that it can unintentionally restrict future parts of the project.

Terrakion
Jellicent
Tyranitar
Tentacruel
Gastrodon
Heatran
Any other rock-type
Some Bulky Water-types
Lati@s (Only if Specially Offensive. Might just be a soft check, since they are not going to enjoy a Poison attack to the face)

I might of missed some, but as far as I can tell, these are probably gonna be checks/counters due to typing alone (defensively). Another thing to note is that this list is VERY diverse in terms of resists, making coverage a serious issue. For example, if we use Fighting coverage, Jellicent, Tentacruel, and possible Lati@s walls us. However, if we opt to use Electric, Gastrodon, (again, only possible) Lati@s, and maybe Heatran laugh at us.

right away: Heatran, politoed, jellicent
If you look at its "best" counters, they're all kinda slow. If we were to taken advantage of that and give it leech seed or poison heal in conjunction with substitute, it would be able to work around these counters.

Click to expand...

It can't use poison heal simply because it's Poison-type, thus has no way of being poisoned.

EDIT: Of course any steel not named Heatran is going to be nervous switching in even if they are immune to poison. It's also worth noting that if you can will-o-wisp something fast enough it almost automatically stops being a physically offensive threat. This does nothing against water or psychic types though.

So let's be blunt. Fire/Poison loses out to both Rain and Sand. And CAP3 isn't going to be so fantastic that all of a sudden CAP3 makes Sun the dominant weather.

So we need to decide which Pokemon often on Rain and Sand teams CAP3 should be capable of beating. Obviously, not Politoed or Tyranitar.

But for example do we want Gliscor to be a counter or even a check of CAP3? It obviously has 4X effective STAB EQ and is very bulky. But that would be irrelevant if CAP3 is faster and has good Special Attack + Ice Beam.

I think CAP3 has plenty of defensive checks and counters by virtue of typing, especially once you factor in Rain or Sand. Jellicent, Tentacruel, Politoed, Tyranitar, Gastrodon, Heatran, and Terrakion stand out as the main things.

In large part CAP3 just won't be able to deal with any of those Pokemon without giving CAP3 something specifically designed for that particular counter/check.

The key question to ask is whether a Pokemon countered by such a various list of threats can function. I think no. Therefore, we've got to decide which threats listed by typing alone we want to be eliminated from the list.

The easy way to knock off a huge chunk of the list is to give CAP3 Dry Skin. BUT! I am adamantly opposed to that as it removes Fire/Poison from the "bad typing category."

Instead, I think the easiest thing to do is to remove a few individual threats with individual considerations. Like for example Earthquake helping to remove Heatran (though no help if balloon) and to a lesser degree Tentacruel, Tyranitar, and Terrakion.

I think keeping most (but not all) of these threats as threats is essential. We don't want to make this into something with amazing potential from the get go. That's against concept.

We should look at this CAP in a different way than we do other CAPs. If you read the description again, the CAP is supposed to "take that "terrible typing", and find ways to fix it (usually via ability, movepool, or stats) to the point where the formerly terrible typing becomes the CAP's strong point". This should open up for some interesting conversation, since we are supposed to be learning from this CAP. I propose that we switch around the typings. (Have the fire typing be the defensive pivot and the poison typing be the offensive pivot). We can do this in a variety of ways. One way is to give it only very weak (or risky), but useful Fire STABs like Magma Storm, Flame Charge, or even just ember. But we could give it the stats so that the types that the pokemon Fire resists (scizor, heatran, etc.) are taken out by this CAP. Alternatively, we can give CAP 3 the strongest poison type moves and give it the support moves to back up the usual counters.

This may seem difficult, but I believe we can get really far with this. It would be great to see fire/poison type take out heatran, tenta, jellicent but not be able to take out ferrothorn or other mons that it should easily be able to take out. THis is just a thought that came to me, but it could turn out to be the most unique and individual mon we come up with and the mon we learn the most from.

To start off, Heatran and Tentacruel completely shut down CAP3's typing. Heatran's combination of typing and stab render it immune to both CAP3's types (versions that don't carry Earth Power have no way to threaten it back though), and Tentacruel is resistant to both typing due to being part poison, and can fire back with a SE water attack. Jellicent and Gastrodon can also wall it real well due to resisting poison with their secondary types, and Gastrodon has Ground STAB to really waylay CAP3. The typing also gives Dugtrio an easy revenge kill, again due to the Ground STAB, and it will be a guarentee thanks to Arena Trap. Tyranitar deserves mention as it enables sandstorm for ground types, resists both CAP3's STABs, and can fire back with a SE Rock STAB. Finally: Any good Ground-Type can pretty much be a nice check, due to hitting for 4x damage. (Landorus comes to mind) Bulky Waters are also good at blocking CAP3, but if it does wind up getting a poisoning attack, must be wary of that. (If CAP3 has a higher attack than Sp. Attack, then Gyrados would love to come in on CAP3)

When it comes to what could be threatened by this, Volcarana does take neutral damage, but has both STABs walled. Grass and Steel types in general must be wary of the fire-type part of CAP3, especially Ferrothorn, Forretress, and Scizor, who have their other typing (grass and bug) double resisted by CAP3. In addition, Lucario has his fighting type resisted, and would thus have trouble setting up in CAP3's face. Out of the Grass and steel types only 3 carry a typing with a SE STAB on CAP3: Celebi, Metagross, and Jirachi, so CAP3 does have to pay attention to those, especially Metagross, who tends to carry Earthquake.

So in closing:Counters right off the bat: Heatran (Total Immunity + Potential incoming Ground attack), Tentacruel (is a wall that Resists Both Types + SE Water STAB + Part-Poison), Jellicent (is a wall that Resists both types + SE Water STAB), Gastrodon (is a wall that Resists both types + SE Ground STAB), Tyranitar (Resists both types + SE Rock STAB. Has Perma-Sand) Dugtrio (Resists poison + SE Ground STAB. Arena Trap means if you have CAP3 out when dugtrio hits, you are very likely to lose it based on typing.)

Potential Counters: Starmie (Resists Fire and can fire back with two STAB attacks.) Gyrados (Resists Fire, has SE Water STAB, and Intimidate.), Politoad (Resists Fire, has SE Water STAB and perma-water. CAP3's least favorite weather.) Ground Types in General (resist Poison and is the 4x SE STAB vs CAP3).

Will it succeed despite threats/Is this list of threats acceptable? That's the whole point of the challenge, neh? I think it will, depending on the role we take this with. Again, Heatran can only threaten with Earth Power, so if it doesn't carry that both then its STABs are resisted by CAP3. The Water types listed as hard counters are fine, Tyranitar is fine, and Dugtrio as a revenge killer is fine, since CAP3 resists three of the more common priority moves (bullet punch, mach punch, and ice shard) The potential counters are all generally good 'mons, so nothing really out of the scope of the project.

Pokemon Threatened by CAP3 based off typing alone: Ferrothorn (Both STABs are resisted, with a double resist on Grass, and is 4x weak to fire), Forretress (Both STABs are resisted, with a double resist on Bug, and is 4x weak to fire), Scizor (Both STABs are resisted, with a double resist on Bug, and is 4x weak to fire), Steel-types and Grass-Types in general, with exception for Heatran (Fire resists steel, and Fire/Poison both resist grass. Celebi, Jirachi, and Metagross are less vulnerable, especially Metagross.)

Are these targets "unavoidable" to threaten based on type alone?: The 3 named ones are for sure, yes.

Are these Pokemon targets we want CAP3 to hit?: Oh heck yes. Being able to consistantly scare away the three mentioned types is an amazing thing, and CAP3 will shut down Scizor from sweeping based solely on type (Resists Bullet Punch, X-Scissor, Superpower, Brick Break and U-Turn). The ability to do so is a huge plus for CAP3, which is a great reason already to pick it.

Where to go with CAP3 from here now that we know what it's counters/threats are?: An interesting question. It would be interesting to see a Fire-type Tank, and the part-poison typing could help with that. A Support role could work too, again due to the resists. If you want to go attacker, it doesn't entirely need a ton of bulk to be real survivable, as outside Ground, Rock, and Water, it isn't damaged too terribly by much, so it could do okay as a sweeper. Really, picking a direction for CAP3 is a bit harder because there's several roles it could fill fairly efficently.

Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?
Earth Power Heatran, Jellicent, Tentacruel and Gastrodon wall CAP3's STAB moves and threaten with super-effective moves.

What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept? Heatran is immune to both of CAP3's STABs, so a way to hit Heatran (one of the most common pokemon in OU) is absolutely necessary for the project to succeed.

What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing? Unless made with extremely frail special defense, Volcarona lacking HP Ground/Rock is unable to hurt CAP3.

What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified? To capitalize on the typing's "not-completely-suckish-ness" in both offense and defense (Fire is good offensively and Poison defensively.) a "Mew-esk" approach to this pokemon (in the "extremely hard to predict" sense" would be the best way to go, imo.

I noticed that looking at the typing that this pokemon could theoretically become an offensive threat stopper and a stall pokemon stopper at the same time. My reasoning for this is that with Fire for burn if we gave the mon Will o Wisp then it could check offensive threats that could sweep teams and also will have access to Toxic which check a good amount of bulky stall mons. Again this isn't perfect but since this mon has immunity to both of these statuses and can dish both out it will be interesting to see how we could make this pokemon not only an offensive threat but a defensive check as well.

Remember what this thread sets out to achieve. We are not trying to list every Pokemon whose typing stops ours, we trying to look at the list of what stops this thing via typing and then decide for ourselves by convincing Deck which of these Pokemon should and which of them should not defeat CAP 3. We need to look at what beats this typing, and then decide what should and shouldn't be pursued as a threat. That is the goal of this thread. This thread will be much tougher for this CAP than Necturna's was, but that's okay. We can do this.

People have already posted countless lists of stuff, but I think a lot of it is irrelevant. Let's think big things only here.

Water-types
Politoed
Tentacruel
Jellicent
Gastrodon

Rock- / Ground-types
Tyranitar
Terrakion
Landorus
Dugtrio
Gliscor

Other
Heatran
CAP 3
Dragonite
Fighting-types
​

That list is not exhaustive, of course, but covers the biggest things we should be focusing on for CAP 3. This means that sure, while Vaporeon and Gyarados are probably relevant to some extent as Water-types, but if we decide something for the quirkier and more prevalent ones, they're equally handled.

We should not let Water-types be threats to CAP 3.

That may sound crazy, but I really think that the way to appropriately use the strengths of this typing is to somehow craft a Fire-type that can take on Water-types. Not only is this an unfilled niche right now (which is really practical), but it also helps a lot more than you might expect. Bulky Water-types are defined by strong neutral Water-type STAB, support Ice Beam for Dragons, and then Toxic. We already handle Ice coverage by resisting it, and we're immune to Toxic by typing! That means that if we continue this trend and plan on dealing with the Water-types, we can give this Pokemon a seriously typing-dependent niche that will be invaluable to the OU metagame. There is no better solution, if you ask me.

We should let Rock- and Ground-types be threats to CAP 3.

This is something I think we can do nothing about even with extreme measures. The problem with Fire typing is that it is not only weak to one-half of EdgeQuake, it's weak to the whole thing. Landorus and Dugtrio both pack Stone Edge on top of EQ, ruining our days. Tyranitar is super bulky, walls our STABs, and has STAB Stone Edge. Terrakion may not be able to CC us to death, but maims us with Stone Edge. Gliscor and Donphan are the only two Ground-types we could theoretically handle if we assume something like Levitate, but seeing as these guys are defensive anyway, they really don't really matter all that much to CAP 3. We should let this be the case and focus CAP 3 elsewhere. Putting our focus here will be foolhardy and will require we ignore the typing essentially in order to accomplish. It's not worth it.

Heatran should threaten CAP 3 if it decides to carry Earth Power.

Heatran is special. Heatran and CAP 3 have typings that resist each other's STABs. Heatran, however, can pack Earth Power to beat CAP 3. LET IT. I think we should let Heatran threaten CAP 3 and focus our attention on the Water-types like I mentioned above. It is the best application of our typing.

CAP 3 should threaten itself.

CAP 3, amusingly, walls its own STABs. I think we should let it wall itself much the same way we let Heatran do its own thing. CAP 3 could theoretically run HPGround to beat opposing CAP 3, and that'd be fine, but we shouldn't encourage CAP 3 to beat itself in any other major way. We have bigger fish to fry in order to really attune ourselves to the typing.

Dragonite should threaten CAP 3, but shouldn't always have a free switch-in.

Dragonite is kind of a non-issue here. It theoretically checks God knows everything when Multiscale is active, and realistically walls our Fire STAB. We should deter Dragonite switching in freely by some means, which could be either really strong attacks or super effective coverage or whatever, but if it gets in we should be fine to check us with Earthquake or, you know, Dragon Dance / STAB Outrage. That is the extent to which we should think about Dragonite with this CAP.

Most Fighting-types are and should be pretty great against CAP 3 even if Poison resists Fighting.

Conkeldurr, Infernape, and Mienshao all pack Stone Edge and will wreck CAP 3 comfortably, and Lucario at +2 should be able to ExtremeSpeed us handily. The only three Fighting-types we should be able to deal with are Breloom, Virizion, and Toxicroak, mostly because we wall their STABs and they can't do much else back as we Fire-STAB them into oblivion.

My post has been kind of long, but there are lots of things to address here, and hopefully it has been useful in doing that. Cheers.

I appreciate this choice of wording because the best and most interesting things that I've heard people discussing for this CAP are things that fall perfectly in line with that idea that Water types have a harder time threatening it. Indeed, I have to agree that letting this CAP, as a Fire type, be able to stand up to Water types (a) gives it a cool niche in the metagame and (b) actually encourages it to use its Poison STAB. I think that both of these are highly desirable if not essential to ensuring that this CAP adheres to the Extreme Makeover concept.

You know what? I am okay with giving it a great way to deal with water-types beyond HP-Electric. It would add a lot of uniqueness and could make it quite the defenaivew force. A question arises on if it's just water-type Pokemon and not attacks or both. The reason I say that is because if it is to just have a way to threaten water types, then we can go with one certain ability, where as if the thought is to keep water type abilities at bay in general, then there is another certain ability that would solve it. The real difference I suppose is one will for sure work while the other one would be better in a general sense (idk if posting which ones I have in mind would be poll jumping or not) but beyond that I am currently at a meaningful loss on how to keep water at bay. (again: trying to avoid poll jumping)

I think one thing we really have to note about this CAP is that, with decent physical bulk, it'll be a complete hard counter to Scizor (unless it packs a wry Technician HP Ground -_-). This gives it a niche already, and if we gave it Mold Breaker + Earthquake, or Power Whip or something, it could destroy Volt-Turn! :D

If CAP is specially offensive then it will be forced to choose HP [Ground] or [Fighting] or [Grass] or whatever it needs to overcome them. If CAP is physically offensive then it should have a decent list of counters, after all Fire/Poison does not scream 'sweeper' and I'd prefer to see it have limited coverage like Brick Break rather than Superpower. If you really wanted to sweep then it should have the tools but it should have to work for it.

If it is defensive then I also see merit in having a list of reliable counters, being forced to take SR damage is going to make the user think twice about switching too rashly. I think this is where its ability can really help it, something like Regenerator would be a way to 'fix' that SR weakness and allow a Fire type to function a bit more freely defensively in OU but also keeping that SR 'weakness' (ie being at 75% health when it switches in) for opponents to exploit. The 4x weakness to Ground also encourages Dugtrio to trap or revenge, will Shed Shell be a popular item choice?

If defensive: All of the above + Dragonite, Rotom-W, Politoed, Latios, Starmie, Gengar, Salamence, Haxorus, Reuniclus, Infernape, Alakazam, Dugtrio etc but CAP3 will mostly likely run Wisp or Toxic to threaten most of them in a more general way.

It's also notable that nearly all Rock types wall CAP3, without powerful coverage will it encourage more Rock types to enter the tier? There are certainly some interesting UU Pokemon that wall CAP3 (hooray for Flygon, Rhyperior, Empoleon and friends!)

(This is extreme poll jumping now but essential when talking about weaknesses) I'm also opposed to giving CAP3 an ability that gives it immunities. That would be an easy way out imo, (fix a Fire type by making it immune to Water!). I think we should keep CAP3's weaknesses and let it be beaten by the things that should beat it. I'd like to see its strengths emphasized such as a strong Poison STAB to threaten Water and Dragon type switch-ins which is a legitimate way to fix that weakness - prevention is the best cure!

Q: Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?
What Pokemon will be major threats to this project right off the bat?
What Pokemon have the potential to become counters?
A: These questions have been covered rather extensively. There are plenty of pokemon that either will hold back an assault and OHKO with either a 4x SE ground move or a 2x SE STAB, or (probably) be able to move first and OHKO. Obviously, this list will be modified based on stats and ability and movepool, but the real question we should be asking is "which pokemon on the list of counters do we want CAP3 to not be threatened by?"
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Q: Will the concept succeed with these set list of threats?
A: With the amount of flexibility we still have, based on ability, movepool, and stats, I sure hope so.
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Q: What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?
A: Metagross (Careful switching into Earthquake), Skarmory, Celebi (If faster and running SpA, it can KO with STAB Psychic moves), Jirachi (Same boat as Celebi), Toxicroak, Venusaur, Breloom, Virizion, Magnezone, Scizor, Forretress
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Q: Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?
A: Most of them, yes. It's a very diverse list of pokemon one would see on a lot of teams.
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Q: What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified?
A: This is largely opinion based, and individually based, but Sweeper or Wall, I'd like to see a pokemon immune to Poison, Burn, and either Paralyze (Sweeper) or Sleep (Wall). This would be an interesting concept, virtual immunity to status, and one that I think would be a nice sub-theme. But this is the opinion of one in a crowd of many. Do with it what you will.

Lets start with the obvious: based on type alone, Heatran should hard counter this. That isn't really a problem. Tentacruel also does, and that leads us to the much bigger problem: against a Rain team, CAP3 is almost useless based on type along. Virtually every member of a Rain team that isn't Ferrothorn or Scizor is threatening to a Fire/Poison, while a Fire/Poison has relatively little threat to offer in return. For a Fire/Poison to be viable, it absolutely has to have a way to remain competitive against Rain teams, whether by means of movepool or ability. Heatran is Stealth Rock neutral, so it can afford to rely on Toxic and switch out a number of times against Politoed, Rotom-w, etc. (and even then, Tentacruel is annoying). CAP3 won't have that luxury. In terms of other Pokemon I would expect to handle CAP3, I imagine Tyranitar, Terrakion, Jellicent and Gastrodon would suffice. I think it particularly important that we we not protect CAP3 against Dugtrio. Basically, we need for CAP3 to work well against either Sand or Rain to be worth using, and from the standpoint of helping the type combination, Rain is probably a better target.

Moderator

So, for the most part I agree with what Rising_Dusk laid out, but there are still a few things I would like to mention. As has been said many times already, Heatran is one of the more obvious counters, and I think this is a very good thing. The same goes for almost all Rock and Ground types. Tyranitar is probably one of the most important counters we can give it, and I think that it is very important that it not have a way to easily get around this. In fact, sand as a whole should give it significant problems. While I would not be 100% against letting it beat a few ground Pokemon, it should not have the ability to scare them off consistently.

Next, I think that CAP3 being a stop to itself would be great. Now obviously for this to happen, it needs to wall itself but not be able to hit back hard with any coverage move. If it is worried enough about losing to a fellow CAP 3 that it chooses to run HP Ground or something, then it would really show how much of an impact the typing we chose could really have.

The big group of Pokemon to think about though are Water Types. I will also agree that CAP3 should have a way around water types, however, water types are such a huge group of Pokemon that saying it should beat them as a whole is kind of unrealistic. No matter how we do it, ground/water Pokemon, most notably Gastrodon, should always be able to beat it. Additionally, I feel that any offensively inclined Water type should at least be on level ground against it. The most important group of Pokemon for CAP3 to threaten, in my opinion, would be bulky waters. Jellicent and Tentacreul are key examples of bulky waters that look like counters but I think we should be able to beat. I think this goes hand in hand with what reachzero said about having it beat Rain. No one Pokemon should really be able to counter the entire strategy, but being able to take out the bulky backbone of these teams would give it a cool niche, even in a hindering weather.

This however still leaves one of the most important Pokemon up in the air: Politoed. However, I think the way to deal with this is fairly similar to what I said above. Offensive Politoed and any Politoed that specifically prepare for it should be able to take down CAP3. However, Bulky Toed should not be able to win the battle with just Scald.

I think that having the ability to beat some of these water types, but not all, would give is a great niche in the metagame, without being too ridiculous.

@jas: I actually disagree with that. I think CAP3 should be able to threaten offensive Water type switch-ins but be beaten reliably by defensive variants such as Jellicent, Tentacruel, Vaporeon and Gastrodon.

My feeling is that if CAP3 could have the threat to nail an offensive Water type switch-in such as ScarfToed or Starmie with good damage then that can be seen as plenty reward for good play and good prediction. It has the tools to do this too because there are plenty of high powered Poison type moves. But being able to beat the defensive Water types reliably is too much. There are plenty of Pokemon out there that can beat those defensive 'mons and while letting CAP3 have a wallbreaking set could be interesting, I think it would be better if that kind of set requires certain parameters to be met (Spikes? etc) than letting CAP3 beat bulky Waters all of the time.

CAP3's typing naturally lends it a niche of beating Steel types, I think that's enough of a niche for it to be selling itself as.

I agree with Rising Dusk's post. I'm very interested in seeing CAP3 in a niche of a Fire type that holds a niche of doing something to water types. I'm curious, though, as to how exactly this can be done. If we're defeating water types based on offensive coverage, then we must either be faster or able to take a stab (and more than likely rain) boosted hit. Defensively, I'm not sure how this can be done without stat buffs or ability usage. I agree that heatran should be able to aptly counter CAP3. Also, by virtue of typing we're almost guarenteed to counter Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Fortress and lose to rocks and grounds. Not much more to say there.

Seeing as this guy is going to almost definetely be finding himself on a sun team, I think it would be fun if we made him unable to be stopped by heatran (i.e, able to carry a viable eq or something) so he's not just another sun sweeper to be shoved aside and will actually have a good excuse to get some usage on sun teams.

I think the counters should be something a bit like this:

Hard counters:
Jellicent
Bulky Toed
Gastrodon
possibly tentacruel if we decide to give it a good fighting move instead of EQ
possibly Tyranitar if specially based mostly

I don't think being walled by water types would be good as it would stop it being "essential" to sun teams if it can already confidently beat heatran and would give it some good possiblities for team-mates.

Seeing as this guy is going to almost definetely be finding himself on a sun team, I think it would be fun if we made him unable to be stopped by heatran (i.e, able to carry a viable eq or something) so he's not just another sun sweeper to be shoved aside and will actually have a good excuse to get some usage on sun teams.

I think the counters should be something a bit like this:

Hard counters:
Jellicent
Bulky Toed
Gastrodon
possibly tentacruel if we decide to give it a good fighting move instead of EQ
possibly Tyranitar if specially based mostly

I don't think being walled by water types would be good as it would stop it being "essential" to sun teams if it can already confidently beat heatran and would give it some good possiblities for team-mates.

Click to expand...

This post is working under the assumption that not only is CAP3 a sweeper, but he will be designed as a pivot for sun teams to work around their counters. I don't really like the direction this may end up going.

However, this and other posts raise a small debate: If CAP3 can work around waters, should we attempt to blanket every water or just a subset? Every water is a bit wide, and I'm a bit torn as to whether we should focus on breaking bulky waters or stopping offensive ones. What are the benefits of our options, and is this even a good niche to invest in to begin with? I'm really enjoying the discussion so far.